2025 Theses Doctoral

The Abyss of the Dream: Interpretation and Authority in Medieval Sufism

Stricof, Ilona Alexandra

This dissertation examines the function of dream-narratives in medieval Sufi instruction manuals. Drawing on a combination of philological analysis, psychoanalytic critical theory, and the anthropology of religion, I argue that dreams function as vital tools in Sufi self-fashioning: they create and disseminate spiritual pedagogies, cement institutional norms, and legitimate political power. Moreover, I argue that these dream-narratives cannot be read in a manner which isolates them from their broader epistemological setting: Islamic theology, classical Arabic literary theory, and Sufi hermeneutics must all combine in the service of this particular work of dream-interpretation.

Medieval Sufi masters viewed the dream realm as a space of divine injunction, ethical instruction, and institutional legitimation. These dynamics are particularly visible in key Sufi instruction manuals, such as Qushayrī’s Risāla and al-Hujwīrī’s Kashf al-Mahjūb. In order to investigate these dynamics, this dissertation performs a close reading of dream-narratives in Sufi instruction manuals, seeking to understand and demonstrate how dreams structure the individual experience of the sleeper, as well as the collective identities of the Sufis who engage with the manuals. I argue that dream-tellings in Sufi instruction manuals are not mere ephemera: rather, they are active sites of meaning-making which shape Sufi ethics, social hierarchies, and relations with political patrons outside of the dream-realm.

Although deeply invested in a close reading of medieval Sufi texts, this dissertation seeks to think “with” critical theory, in order to read for resonances with contemporary hermeneutic and oneiric methodologies. To that end, my theoretical lens combines Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Jacques Derrida’s theory of the “trace,” Ibn Jinnī’s philosophy of language, and Katherine Pratt Ewing’s interventions in the anthropology of Islam. As I demonstrate, this blended medieval-modern analytical “lens” can support unpacking the semiotic complexity already implicit within the texts themselves.

The language of psychoanalytic critical theory makes explicit linguistic operations that neither a purely theological nor historical method would supply. Thinking with and against the grain of theory, this study demonstrates that Sufi dream-accounts deploy intricate linguistic play and conceptual ambiguity to articulate a mode of knowing beyond the realm of rational discourse. Moreover, I also argue that dreams in Sufi instruction manuals play a key role in the formation of Sufi institutions in the complex political, social, and economic crucibles of Baghdad, Khurasan, Mecca, and Ghazna of the 5th/11th to 7/13th centuries.

Finally, I seek to trouble the conventional separation of “medieval” and “modern” epistemologies by situating medieval Sufi dream theory within a broader intellectual history that includes Ancient Greek, classical Islamic, and modern psychoanalytic traditions. Sufi dream-narratives, rather than being relics of a primitive premodern lifeworld, can instead become the keys to unlocking new epistemological and even ontological possibilities.